This invention relates to singulating seedlings.
Forestry practices currently in wide use provide for establishing forest stands by planting seedlings which have been grown from seed in a nursery. Inasmuch as nursery plantings are typically done at some distance from forest sites to be established, seedlings are lifted from nursery beds, bundled for ease in handling, and transported to forest sights for planting. The process of bundling and transporting seedlings has been recognized as introducing difficulty in the subsequent handling of single seedlings which is necessary to the planting operation. The separation of individual seedlings from a bundle has come to be known as singulating.
A number of apparatus have been proposed heretofore for performing the task of singulating seedlings from a bundle of seedlings. Typically, apparatus and methods for singulating seedlings must balance the difficulties of handling seedlings in a bundle against the problems of excessive injury to seedlings by the exertion of force on the seedlings in the process of singulation. Solutions to these problems are still being sought.